There are a lot of ways to look at a company and evaluate them for fundamental strength. Traditional metrics, including many of the ones that I rely on for the stocks that I analyze, measure everything from sales and earnings growth to how much productivity the company realizes per employee. You can break down the […]
Read MoreAs trade concerns have introduced volatility back into the market, industrial and technology stocks in particular have been battered the worst. It is true that many of the companies in these sectors have been referring to tariffs and trade among headwinds to their latest earnings results. That is among the reasons that the Industrial sector, […]
Read MoreThe energy sector is one of the most cyclical sectors of the economy, primarily because of its reliance on oil. Oil prices are often highly volatile depending any number of factors, ranging from geopolitics to weather phenomenon to simply supply and demand. A good example of that volatility was seen in the latter part of […]
Read MoreIn the latter part of June, I wrote about Westrock Company (WRK), a stock in the Materials sector that had dropped to the extreme low end of its historical range and is in a long-term downward trend that dates back to January of 2018. At the time, there were enough holes in the company’s fundamental […]
Read MoreCisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) is one of the most recognizable and established companies in the Technology sector. With a market cap of nearly $200 billion, they are also one of the largest, if not THE largest player in the Networking & Communications segment. They are, without question, the standard that all other networking businesses are […]
Read MoreAs trade tensions have restored volatility to the market, sectors like Industrials and Technology appear to be on the bleeding edge of risk exposure. That’s because the longer tariffs remain in place – and both the U.S. and China keep drawing their own respective hard lines in the sand about trade – the more the […]
Read MoreMarket volatility has come back in a big way over the last two days. I don’t think it should be all that surprising, given the way that trade and tariffs have dominated market commentary for most of the last year and a half. Even as officials from both the U.S. and China resumed negotiations last […]
Read MoreEarlier this week, I wrote about Alaska Air Lines (ALK) as an interesting stock, primarily because of the fact that it doesn’t have any of Boeing’s (BA) 737 MAX, the plane that has been grounded by governments across the world after two fatal crashes that left no survivors. The aftermath hasn’t been pretty for the […]
Read MoreWhen technical traders see a stock’s price pattern diverging from its industry or sector, the question becomes whether that divergence represents an opportunity, or a risk. The commonly held principle that “a rising tide lifts all ships” usually means that if a broad segment of the market, such as the Consumer Discretionary sector, is performing […]
Read MoreAs you start analyzing individual stocks as potential investing opportunities, one of the most logical steps to take is to analyze the stock’s industry. A strongly performing industry, more often than not should act as a positive catalyst to the stock you’re considering. In the same light, concerns about the industry can usually be expected […]
Read MoreThe last week of July has been a pretty significant one for the market, despite the fact that the summer months are traditionally seen as a period of decreasing volatility and price action. A large number of large cap, S&P 500-listed companies have been reporting their earnings this week, with more to come by the […]
Read MoreOne of the industries that hasn’t been participating in bullish rally enjoyed by the broader Consumer Discretionary sector is apparel manufacturers. While the sector has increased about 24% year to date and more than 4% in the last month, as measured by the S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary Sector SPDR ETF (XLY), even the leading apparel […]
Read MoreThe Consumer Discretionary sector has been one of the highest-performing sectors in the market year-to-date; as the broad market has pushed to new all-time highs, so has this sector, increasing about 24% year to date and more than 4% in the last month, as measured by the S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary Sector SPDR ETF (XLY). […]
Read MoreFor growth investors, stocks making new all-time highs are usually seen as the best kinds of stocks to buy. When new all-time highs happen at the top of a long-term upward trend, many of those same investors get even more excited, because traditional trend analysis usually suggests that those are among the highest-probability signals to […]
Read MoreOver the last couple of weeks, it seems like the market has finally started to look for storylines to help guide its direction other than trade. It’s as though the market has finally realized that tariffs and the ongoing debate between the U.S. and its trading partners, which has been going on for more than […]
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